Reggie Jackson doing some work

It’s easy to forget that Reggie Jackson is even on the roster. A lot of people ask me, “So if James Harden starts, who comes off the bench and scores?” I think the obvious answer is, Reggie Jackson is supposed to. I’m not entirely certain of what his position or official role will be, but obviously he’s got some kind of place on this team. Maybe it means Eric Maynor (or Russell Westbrook) are expendable in the future, or maybe it’s just Sam Presti doing what he does and stockpiling talent.

Three things about the video though:

1) Holy crap, his wingspan. We’ve heard all about it being seven feet and I’ve seen some video, but those arms look like Doc Ock’s tentacles.

2) Cool pink gloves, Reggie.

3) Sounds like Reggie really thinks he’s a point guard. That is what he played at Boston College, but the feeling is that in OKC, he’ll move to more of a combo role where he handles and plays off the ball, giving the Thunder a bit of that scoring punch.

It’s hard to get all that excited about a video where he just shows off a crossover against someone who has no chance of defending him, but his build and look are impressive. He just looks like an explosive athlete. He looks like a guy that can defend and create havoc in passing lanes. We might have forgotten about him a bit, but I think we’ll get well acquainted with Reggie this season.

Jackson had 2 very weak seasons hitting the college 3 pointer and then a very nice one. 24 feet is different than 21 feet or the 20 it was. I hope he can hit the 24 footer. It not right awat, eventually. It is important for his own stats and generally important from a team perspective for a PG to have that shot.

P.S. Billups' career TS% is a bit above Durant's career number so far and 48th best in NBA history amongst qualifiers.

Raw FG% can mislead on high volumer 3 pt shooters like Billups. His career eFG% is almost 50% (which is league average these days). His TS% (because of high FTAs and high FT%) is over 58% which is darn good.

Westbrook's raw career FG% is just barely above Billups at 42.1%. He generally hasnt have the volume or accuracy on the 3 pt shot yet so his eFG% only increases to 43.4, far below Billups. He gets a similar kick up from free throw volume and accuracy but without that 3 pt shot boost that Billups has Westbrook only gets up to 50.9% which is far below Billups 58% and pretty far below the league average of 54%. Neither was anything special from midrange lat season.

I'd rather Jackson be like Billups on shooting than Westbrook. I don't want to overdue the pressure but I have high hopes for Jackson on shooting and defense. He might not light the world up with assists. I hope he doesn't take a lot of 21 footers. That shot is for college.

I find it humorous that he mentioned one player he watched and "wanted to shoot like, percentage wise" was Chauncey Billups.

Fail.

I hope he has higher standards than that percentage wise (his words, not mine) as a pro. Chauncey is a career .417 shooter. 5 fulls seasons below .400 fg %......he shoots the three well, but his overall fg% is not so good.

The multi-season RAPM estimate for Thabo is a very mild +0.4 positive (positive defensive impact nearly offset by offensive slippage). Perkins' multi-season estimate is a mild -0.8 negative (positive defensive impact more than offset by offensive slippage). Thabo'S 2010-11 performance was his best in 4 years and the trend was up with no downturns. Perkins best in the last 4 years was 4 years ago but after dropping a bit 3 years ago it has improved 2 straight seasons to get back to just above even on RAPM. If fit next season he might get back to his best level but as detailed previously he has far more negative APM ratings for his career than positive ones.

Traditional APM had Green as moderate to large negative in 3 of 4 seasons, with a strong uptick in year 2. RAPM had him moderatly negative all 4 years with only the slightest uptick in year 2. Multi-season RAPM moved up from the modest negatives to a higher estimate negative. If you look at both versions and multi-season I think APM can help provide a pretty good estimate of true impact in most cases.

Maynor surged from mild negative to mild positive from year 1 to 2 on RAPM and from moderate positive to strong positive on traditional APM. That movement could be player development (and being used with better lineups for his talents) or statistical noise or some of each. Year 3 and 4 will probably help more firmly define the level of his impact too.

Ibaka doesn't have a long=term APM yet either but in his case both traditional APM and RAPM estimate him as a mild negative impact overall so far.

Durant, Collison and Westbrook all look good on multi-season RAPM. We'll have to wait n see how Russell plays in year 4. Westbrook was estimated a mild positive on single season RAPM in year 1, a strong positive in year 2 and only +0.5 pts per 48 minutes in year 3.

Between the 2 ratings I tend to believe RAPM more because of the methodology but the "true impact" may lie closer to the middle, or closer to Harden having a small impact. The way lineups are run with some pairings being very dominant and some very rare can distort ratings of some players too high and others low. RAPM reduces this tendency but doesn't eliminate it 100% and there could still be fairly big swings away from true impact in some rare cases. APM built from 3-5 seasons tends to offer the most accurate ratings in general. Harden will get longer view ratings in the future but doesn't one yet.

"Bench did well throughout the season even with Harden not playing. It was the starters that needed Harden."

I can confirm what okcbaby observed and said and add some detail.

I simplified a bit and labeled time when Maynor is in as most of bench time (there is also some time with Westbrook and 3 or more bench players but I didn't look at those minutes).

Maynor played with Harden 1064 minutes and only 136 minutes without Harden. 89% of his total minutes were with Harden. Without Harden the team averaged a +3.2 per 48 minutes. With Harden +7.9. Of course there are probably other differences between the quality of those OKC lineups and the opponents so Harden is not solely responsible for this difference.

Yes the bench did well without Harden. But a lot better with.

Traditional Adjusted +/- and RAPM differ widely on Harden's impact last season. Adjusted +/- suggests he was a pretty large negative. RAPM suggest he was a nice positive. They disagree when looking multi-season as well.An example of limitations with APM and especially using just one estimate. Will be interesting to see which way Harden's ratings go next season and beyond.

Sometimes you can just tell by the way a guy moves and by his build. They say that Marcus Dupree (former OU running back for the unfamiliar) was a "ten footer." The scouts could tell he was really good after having watched him run just 10 feet. I had a similar feeling watching Reggie in this video. You could tell there is something good at work there.